


A Ghost on my Back

by smaragdbird



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 17:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9334637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: Coulson goes through his memories, trying to find what he had missed that he couldn't that the man he had loved, the man he had trusted was in truth a Hydra agent. That he had never truly know Jasper at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this ](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/19023.html?thread=44301903#t44301903) prompt

_Phil was woken by the sounds coming from his kitchen. Reasoning that a burglar would not bother putting coffee on, he padded into the room only his pyjamas. It was early morning and everything was bathed in a soft yellow light including Jasper who stood at his stove._

_“Hey”, he said, smiling warmly over his shoulder._

_“Morning”, Phil replied, yawning. He walked up to Jasper and wrapped his arms around his waist._

_“Did I wake you?” Jasper asked._

_“I’m surprised I didn’t wake up earlier.”_

_“Maybe you’re finally getting used to me. Or I’m getting better at being sneaky.”_

_“How was Honduras?”_

_“Warm, sunny, too many people with firearms and I need a shave.”_

_“I like it”, Phil said, nuzzling Jasper’s neck just below his ear._

_“Phil, stop it. I’ll burn the food”, Jasper laughed. He was slightly ticklish at his neck._

_“Don’t care. I need you in my bed more than I need pancakes.”_

_“Guess you missed me, then.” Jasper smiled and switched the stove off. Then he turned around and finally kissed Phil properly._

Phil gave up on sleep with a frustrated sigh. Ever since Natasha had found him and told him about Jasper he had trouble sleeping. Up until that moment he had hoped that Jasper was on their side. No, that was wrong. He hadn’t even entertained the idea. Ward, Garrett, Pierce, sure but not Jasper. They had worked together for the past six years and been together for two once Phil had given up his hang-ups on workplace dating after his death. Everyone could be Hydra but not Jasper.

Obviously he had been very, very wrong about that.

Ever since he had gone through every memory from their first meeting and the awkward not-quite dates Jasper had tried to disguise as work outings to the actual dates after the battle of New York and the decision to give living together a try as well as they could with their jobs.

So far he had found nothing. There was no slip up Jasper had made. No suspicious missions or encrypted files on his laptop that was still in their apartment. By all accounts he had been a loyal Shield agent until the moment he had ordered the execution of Steve Rogers.

Phil had turned their apartment upside down and found nothing. There was no trail connecting Jasper with Hydra and yet he had been one of their agents. 

_“Agent Coulson, sir?”_

_Phil turned around, bracing himself for the doubtless inane question the junior agent had. Instead he was greeted by an extended hand._

_“I’m Agent Sitwell, sir, level four. Agent Hill assigned me to your team for the Cordoba mission.”_

_“Nice to meet you Agent Sitwell”, Phil replied and shook his hand._

_“Would you mind going over the mission brief, sir? It’s my first field mission.” He sounded so young and Phil wondered if he had sounded the same to Nick back then when he had been recruited._

_“No problem. My office is this way. Which branch do you hail from, Agent Sitwell?”_

_“Communications, sir.”_

Had Jasper already worked for Hydra at that point? Or had he joined them later? Not for the first time Phil wished that Jasper was still alive if only to get some answers from him. His memories were useless without Jasper giving him answers. Agent Hand had recruited him while he had still been in college and she definitely hadn’t been a Hydra agent. Who had approached him? And what had they offered him? Had that first field mission been a reward or a punishment or neither? Jasper had never been too keen on field work the way Phil was. Jasper had had two specialities: data analysis and acting. Phil had watched him lying his way in and out of secret prisons, underground bases, hospitals under quarantine and government buildings enough to make Natasha envious. 

_“Good work Agent Sitwell. Operations took a great loss the day you joined Communications”, Phil said after the mission in Cordoba had gone textbook. In his by now eighteen years with Shield Phil had never seen an operation working this flawlessly._

_“Thank you, sir”, Jasper replied and blushed._

_“Enjoy your free evening. Our flight home is at 8.00am.”_

_“Sir, would you...I mean...would you join me for dinner? My Spanish is crap and I’d like to avoid accidentally eating seafood if I could.”_

_It was a bald faced lie if Phil had ever heard one. Especially from the man who had convincingly pretended to be a computer specialist so he could open a backdoor in the system for their agents in the Caracas branch._

_Phil hesitated for a moment. Nothing would ever come of it of course but he liked Sitwell so far and it wouldn’t hurt having dinner with a colleague. So he said, “Sure, what did you have in mind?” and ignored the blindingly bright smile Jasper gave him._

This was one of the memories Phil had gone through much more often than the others. More than anything he wanted to know if Jasper’s interest in him had been fake or not. Fuck Shield, fuck the mission, fuck Captain America, Phil wanted to know if their relationship had been real or not. Had Jasper used him? It had only been the first of many dinners over the next four years that they had eaten together, always with the unacknowledged fact at the back of their minds that if Phil wanted to have Jasper for dessert, he could.

For four years nothing had happened. Phil hadn’t had let anything happen. Shield had taken so much of his life he had tried to keep at least that part of him separate from the rest. Well, that and the disastrous train wreck of a relationship with Agent Diaz back in his third year with Shield.

Dying had really put things in perspective.

Clint and Natasha would laugh so hard if they could hear him now. Strike Team Delta was his team more than anything else and together the three of them had made it through some very hard times. But Natasha was still being held by the Congress and Clint worked a deep undercover mission for Fury. Now that he was Director Fury actually told him things like that.

They would tell him that he shouldn’t try to search for answers where there were none. Hell, Melinda had said pretty much the same thing.

_Phil knocked on the doorframe. “Busy?”_

_Jasper looked up from the pile of paperwork on his desk and smiled when he saw him. “Not too much. How are you?”_

_“Better, considering I was dead for 12 seconds.”_

_“Hill said it was eight.”_

_“Did I say 12? I meant twenty of course”, Phil deadpanned._

_Jasper laughed softly. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”_

_“Yeah, me too.” Phil walked in and sat down on the edge of Jasper’s desk. “Since when do you have an open door policy?”_

_“Since they dumped all of your duties on my shoulders. Agent Blake and half of the junior agents call me by your name too.”_

_“Sorry about that.”_

_“Not your fault. Although next time please wait for back up instead of challenging a megalomaniac god one on one. You’re making me go prematurely bald.”_

_That Phil actually grinned at his joke seemed to please Jasper. There was as slight lull in their conversation where Phil gathered his courage before he asked, “If you’re not too busy, how about dinner?”_

_Jasper’s eyes widened slightly. It was always him who mentioned dinner, never Phil. That was the pattern. “You mean – “_

_“ – A date”, Phil finished for him. “If you want.”_

_“Thought you were never gonna ask.” Jasper’s smile was warm and Phil was truly glad to be alive._

**Author's Note:**

> Find me [ here](http://smaragdbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


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